


Treaty Line

by Fics4you



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Crew as Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fake AH Crew, Fluff and Angst, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 11:58:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fics4you/pseuds/Fics4you
Summary: Confrontation between crews has left your relationship with Michael in tatters, but will he understand?





	Treaty Line

“Can we talk about it?”

 

He doesn’t meet your question, let alone your eyes. Tracing ruts into the grain curling through the table, fingers tugging on the splinters left by wood guzzling up the passing rain of a happier morning. Of an easier time in a section of the park the two of you adorn almost every day, bathing in the cold sun until you’re forced to part ways, lives pulling you apart. 

 

God, you wish it were raining now, at least then there’d be something to fill the silence. Something to drown out the sound of your racing heart and the throb of rejection drumming in your stomach. Repetitive,  _ nauseating _ . A winter night that froze with the whiplash of the day’s events, emotions tumbling into chaos as the world screeches to a stop. Stuck in this moment. Stuck with him.

 

“Please, Michael. I need you to tell me it’s alright.”

 

But he still refuses to acknowledge your existence, the words he spits joining your guilt pooling across the floor. Despair feeding the grass, seeping through the pathway stones. You can almost hear it hiding in the trees, gentle rustling nagging at the hairs dusting your skin, running over your scalp. “Why the fuck would it be alright?”

 

You don’t know how to answer, left to stare at the nothingness dancing from your lips in the cold, biting air. Of course it’s not alright. You doubt it ever will be. Somehow you find your voice, but it’s not much. A broken whisper that sounds far too close to a cry, almost lost on the wind that tears through your clothes as though you aren’t really wearing them at all. “I don’t know.” 

 

“Am I ever going to get a straight answer from you, Y/N? Or are we hiding everything now?” 

 

You were wrong, it’s not the air that bites. It’s him. The accusations in his eyes. The scalding soup of denial and betrayal and anger. Simmering in confusion, bubbling with bitterness; and with each bursting dome it gets worse. His mind more and more made up. A friend drifting further and further away. 

 

“I’m sorry, Michael. I don’t know where to start. If you’d just listen, maybe-”

 

“Listen?” You can hear the growl rattling in the back of his throat, eager to crawl across his tongue and hang from his lips - but he does he best to hold it back. Instead he rockets from his seat on the park bench, glaring down at your fragile figure shrinking away. “You want me to listen to how you lied? To how you went behind my back?” He’s pacing down, wringing the night’s neck between frigid, unruly hands. He makes no attempt to hide the snarl. “About how you knew what you were doing, but decided to hurt me anyway?” 

 

“It’s not like that.” 

 

“Then what’s it like, Y/N?” He stops his pacing, and the anger you expect him to turn on you is replaced with defeat. Watery eyes and a face so pale the redness of his nose glares. “I thought it all mattered. I thought I mattered. More than the fucking crew who’s been screwing us for months, anyway.”

 

“You do matter, Michael.” You want to reach out, clutch his collar and shake until the trembles rocking your body subside. Want to hold him until it’s all alright and the din of the street fades into nothing. An involuntary hand twitches towards him, fingers calling out for his comfort, but he swats them away. “You matter so much.”

 

“Apparently not.” His arms cross tightly, blocking off this chest. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been on the other side of the fucking treaty line.  _ With them _ .” 

 

You bristle, and it takes all you have to keep the rise of your hackles from curling your top lip. Instead a steady needling scratches the back of your neck, burrowing between your shoulders as he lets off a defiant sniff you almost feel sorry for. But it hurts, the accusations he hurls, the blatant disregard. Hurts enough for your self loathing to shift.  “You wouldn’t understand.”

 

At this he laughs, harsh and bitter. Incredulous, his eyebrows shoot beneath copper curls, the usual cheek that graces his face brightly almost returning. But his eyes stay flat. “You’re right, I don’t.” He returns to his pacing, the bottoms of his jeans wet with the grass. “I don’t understand how I thought I could trust you. How I thought you and me could be-” 

 

He stops, catching the words he’s never had the courage to say, and certainly doesn’t have the will to now. Angry hums take their place, his face scrunching like the fists he holds by his sides. “Why did you pick them over us?” 

 

This you have an answer to, though it’s not one you’re comfortable admitting. Never one to play the damsel, but helpless all the same. “I didn’t have a choice. If I left they’d-”

 

“What, kill you?” He laughs again, hollow.

 

“-Kill  _ you _ .”  

 

Michael physically stiffens, caught off guard. You take the opportunity to draw in a shaky breath, the feeling long since lost in the fingers you delve into your pocket. From it you retrieve a hefty envelope crammed so full that the sides threaten to split. It thunks onto the park table beside you, taking with it the last of your patience. Then you roll up one of your sleeves, exposed skin stinging as fresh welts greet the open air. At the sight he pales, looking ill  while you roll up the other. The same red marks screaming angrily across your body, flesh wrinkled and twisted with the shape of the hot pokers that had been pressed against you only days before. The same goes for your stomach, body blotched with brutish blues and yellows beneath your clothes. You don’t know how noticeable it is in the bathing of the street lamps, but know by his horrified expression that it’s obvious enough. 

 

“I couldn’t leave my crew because they’d kill the Fakes if I did. Everything they did to me,” you yank your clothes back into place, “they’ll do to you. That file?” You motion to the envelope, and this time he shifts his gaze to the offending bundle of paper. “It’s everything they have on you and your crew. Well, all that’s left that is. I managed to destroy most of it before they got hold of me, and did all of  _ this _ .”

 

Michael tries to turn the information over in his head, confusion obvious. It takes a minute but eventually he admits that he has no idea what you’re talking about. 

 

“They found out that I was friends with you. One of the guys, Todd I’m guessing, must have been tracking me for weeks. Should’ve realised, I was an idiot for not being careful. Remember the night you told me that you were a part of the Fakes? It was when Los Santos did those stupid light shows and had the market stalls. We sat by the pier and ate peanut butter everything until I nearly puked?”

 

He remembers, there’s no way he can’t. It was arguably the happiest night he’s had in years. The way the flashing string lights had danced with the colours shining in your hair, dusting your shoulders and bobbing across the water. He always remembers of that night, of you swinging your legs as they dangled off the wood, the gentle smile that crossed your lips and the way his hand itched to hold yours. “We ate a fuck tonne of pizza.” 

 

“I told you not too.” 

 

Michael pulls a face, exterior defenses thawing a little. He’d fought against your reminders of his lactose intolerance, eagerly eyeing up the cheesiest pizza either of you had ever seen. He regretted it, but that’s something he’ll never admit. You smile, though barely. 

 

“Well, they’d heard you. The next day they… questioned me. I told them I was running some undercover ops after they finished trying to beat out my teeth and I had time to talk. Told them that I was trying to get access to the Fakes so I could rob you blind, and hadn’t told them because I wasn’t sure it would work. They believed me, for the most part. But I started noticing your files growing, so I decided I’d try and leave. Wanted to take all of the info with me too, but they smelt a rat. They brought me in again the other night, made sure I knew what would happen if I decided to consider changing sides. To me and to you. I stood on that line and put a gun to your head so they wouldn’t kill you.” 

 

He doesn’t know what to do, hands working the air and eyes searching for something to fuel his anger. He finds nothing, only able to take in your distraught expression while gathering your guilt from the floor to claim it as his own. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

You smile, happiness breaking through the dreariness of the night and colouring his cheeks a pleasant pink. “Because you’d have gone running in and gotten yourself killed. And after all the effort I put into keeping you alive, I wasn’t about to let that happen.”

 

He can’t deny it, but for a moment he looks as though he wants too. Instead he takes a tentative step forward, uncertain. “I, err… I guess I’m kinda being an asshole, huh?”

 

“You think?” 

 

Then relief washes your cheeks with tears, nervous laughter muffled in his shoulder as he pulls you against him. His apologies join the clatter of your head, words tangling in your hair. You breath him in, smoke and sorrow catching in your lungs and stumbling over the fingers gripping his jacket to stop him escaping; not that he has any intentions of doing so. 

 

“So, are we friends again?”

 

He laughs, but you’re almost certain it’s a distraction from crying. “Not even close. But,” he pulls back, smiling warmly down at you as though the past day hasn’t sent the two of you in spirals, “we can rebuild as long as you pay for dinner.” 


End file.
